


Broken Crown

by red_seabream



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-09-14 06:35:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16907979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_seabream/pseuds/red_seabream
Summary: Modern day AU of Metal Gear 2 with a twist - a disenfranchised Snake joins Zanzibar Land





	1. Prologue: A human name

# Prologue: A Human Name

> _Do animals have less fear because they live without words?_ (Elias Canetti)

Snake blows out a long stream of cigarette smoke, watching the next round of recruits do laps around the fenced-in exercise yard. The nicotine hit feels so sweet after a long day of slogging through mud and grime and getting screamed at. He did almost ten years as a Green Beret and a few more in… various other roles; he’d thought his basic training days were long behind him.

But everyone who comes through the gate gets the same treatment. Men and women come from all around the world to join the mercenary nation of Zanzibar Land, all different backgrounds. They need to start on the same page. The recruits are split off into groups by the dominant language they speak, so that someone can scream at them and degrade them in a way they can actually understand. It’s mostly Aussies in Snake’s group, though there are a few fellow Americans too.

“I hope I never stop appreciating the sight of a group of men sweating in the dirt,” a female voice says beside him. The journalist, Holly White. Snake recognizes her from when one of the Aussies’ pointed her out in the chow hall. She’s petite, with thick, straight dark hair and dark eyes under a heavy fringe. The men all like to look, but they all keep their distance from The Press, as she’s known without affection. “You have an extra cigarette?”

“Sure.” He fishes the crumpled package out of his breast pocket and hands it over to her, then leans in to light the cigarette she pulls out and places between her lips. His knuckles are torn and packed with dirt.

“Thanks,” she says, and exhales a long stream of smoke up out of the corner of her mouth. “You American?”

“Yup.”

“I can tell,” she says, and there’s a playful spark in her eyes. “You’re a long way from home, cowboy.”

“No, I’m not,” Snake finishes his cigarette and slips the butt into his portable ashtray. “Or did they not make you sit through that speech?”

Every new round of recruits started off their indoctrination with a rousing speech from the XO about forsaking past nationhood, the value of brotherhood and solidarity, duty, honour, so on and so forth. Cloaked in rhetoric as it was, the message was clear – this is your home now, even if you’ve never had a home before.

“I guess not. You might find this hard to believe, but there’s a lot around here they don’t let me listen to.” Holly turns away from the fence to look at him. “What’s your name?”

Slipping the ashtray back into a pocket, Snake brushes the dried mud off of the front of his uniform where his name is stamped across a piece of Velcro tape in clear block letters: SNAKE.

Holly rolls her eyes. “I mean your real name. Your human name.”

Snake doesn’t quite laugh, it’s more of a sharp exhale with a bit of humour stuck to it, and nods back out at the men crawling and fighting in the dirt. “Look around. There are no human beings here.”

Holly watches him walk away, heading back to the barracks. Behind her, someone suddenly starts to shout and as she turns she sees one man in the dirt as another straddles his waist, hammering his fists into his opponent's face while the man on the ground tries to block with his arms. Other men are standing around the scene in a circle, one of them wearing the red beret of an officer, pointing out instructions to the man swinging his fists. Each one has the name of an animal stitched across his heart. She stubs out her cigarette and walks away, suddenly tired of it.


	2. NYT | ZL: Part 1

# NYT: Part 1

By Holly White, on location in Zanzibar Land

Dear readers,

This is the first in a ten-part series the NYT has negotiated with the leaders of Zanzibar Land to give the outside world a chance to understand a bit more about what happens behind the borders of the mysterious military nation that came from the shadows to poach the recently privatized UN Peacekeeping contract right out from under the noses of some of the biggest private military companies operating globally.

The name Zanzibar Land (ZL) has been floating around Third World hotzones for a few years now. I ran across it now and again when I was embedded with the USMC in Iraq and again in both Syria and Mali. Even then it was like a legend; a place men disappeared to when they’d had enough of battlefield politicking and sleeping cold in the field at the beck and call of a bunch of soft-bellied POGs.

The man in charge was everything from a disillusioned war hero to a deserter who had walked away from his post and left his squadmates to die. I once even heard he was a CIA plant to get guys on the hook and stick them with a one-way ticket to Leavenworth. Such stories abound in warzones, in the long stretches of time between heart-bursting moments of action.

Despite their creativity, none of those stories come close to the reality. But more on that later.

The first thing that really surprised me about ZL was the children. They are everywhere here, and they often run out to greet the big Chinook supply helicopters like the one I flew in on. They are mostly child soldiers and war orphans; they know not to come out for the second-hand Blackhawks or Apache’s purchased surplus from apparently nowhere since no nation will cop to selling surplus assets to a private military company that might end up using them against their own troops someday.

If you are picturing wide-eyed, frightened children in rags, dry your tears. And if you are picturing a war mongering mercenary nation buoyed by child sweatshop labour, calm your outrage. I flew in with a couple of representatives from UNICEF and they tell me that, other than the types of (admittedly, not insignificant) wounds and trauma you’d expect from children exposed to the horrors of war, these children are in pretty good shape. They are well-fed and well-rested and, most importantly, they are safe.

The kids are all required to go to school for a few hours each day (the older the child, the longer they’re expected to stay cooped up in one of the portable units – the kind you see tacked on to schools who have run out of room stateside). It’s not quite like a regular school, but then, these aren’t regular children. Before they came here some of the children were commanders of their own units; their learning needs don’t fit into a rubric.

“They’re like almost everyone else who ends up here,” ZL’s second in command, Mr. Bishop tells me as we observe a group of younger kids scribbling away on wide-lined paper. He’s one of the few around here who will tell me his surname. You may recognize him from the UN proceedings: he’s handsome, despite his thick-framed glasses, and Canadian. “The world doesn’t understand them – doesn’t want to. But we do.”

There aren’t many traditional families here, and yet despite there being no parents to fight for their education rights, education remains one of the fledgling nation’s top priorities. Although it wasn’t much publicized at the time, one of the preconditions for their acceptance of the UN Peacekeeping Office’s standing contract was that budgetary considerations be made for education – primary and continuing, so that no one ever need be cast aside or left behind. Think of the GI Bill and you’d be close.

Yet the fringe perks like education, housing, and job security aren’t why most people show up at ZL’s border. I ask all of the soldiers I meet here why they came and although there is some variation on the theme, more often than not the response is the same: The Commander. They come to learn from him; just to be close to him; because any place that _he_ built has to be better than anything else out there; because he saved them; because he would die for them.

That’s a hell of a reputation to live up to.

Check back next week for Part Two. Or click below to subscribe for updates...


	3. FLASHBACK: Afghanistan, 201X

He will miss the quiet. That errant thought sneaks into the whirling gears of his mind as he puts a finger to his lips and gestures for the young woman in front of him to stay silent. Eyes huge with terror, she nods frantically at him, burrowing into the darker shadow of a corner. She trusts him, even as he creeps through her room with a knife at the ready. Ready to commit an act of betrayal. Of murder. He’s always been kind to her, in a fashion. At least, he tried to be.

No, that’s not right, Snake corrects himself. She’s just terrified of him. Too afraid of what a man like him would do when crossed. The fear runs so deep she barely breathes. But she shakes. Uncontrollably. Whatever happens now, her life is over. Where is there to go back to? The local men who come here to work and learn look at her with derision, when they can bear to look at her at all. Like it was her choice.

Well, he sure as hell isn’t going to miss that shit.

He could try to get her back stateside, but America may as well be on another planet. He can’t help her. Guess he never could. There's a thought.

There are places he’s been, out on recon, where the quiet is almost overwhelming. Sometimes he likes to take a moment and let all of that wash over him, through him. It feels so pure. Not like this quiet. The hush of danger stalking in the night.

He wonders if it’s quiet in Leavenworth. But that’s getting a little ahead of himself, so instead he wonders if it’s quiet in hell.

Doubtful.

There’s no door on the woman’s room, just a curtain separating it from his CO’s. Pressing himself into the wall Snake peeks through the gap between the ratty fabric and the frame. The next room is dark, and he can see the rough outline of a man on the bed, can hear soft, even breathing.

When he wasn’t actively involved in an op, his CO was a man of brutal, punishing routines. Off in this lonely, rural part of Afghanistan, lights-out came early and was strictly observed. Snake was supposed to be up on the roof, keeping watch, updating reports on their progress on stabilizing this region to send into HQ. Not so much winning hearts and minds as teaching a bunch of farmers to use automatic rifles and enforcing law with brute force. It was actually Dodge’s rotation for that pleasure except, of course, it was difficult to pull guard duty when you were buried in the dirt in the middle of fucking Afghanistan. Yeah, that had been hard to come back to after 10 days sleeping out in the field.

Stupid. So stupid. Of all the ways to find your death in this part of the world “literally insane CO” had to rank pretty high. But then, in a war, things start to lose perspective. In a chain of command with a madman at the top, who were really the crazy ones?

After a couple of moments of waiting, Snake slips through the curtain into the room, boots scuffling softly on the carpet that’s been laid over the dirt.  

It seems to take forever to cross the tiny room, pausing between each step, each heartbeat. But the shape on the bed doesn’t move, except in shadows where one corner of the curtain flutters in the breeze from the window.

If he had been thinking, if he had _slept_ , Snake might have noticed that the shape on the bed wasn’t moving at all. But it’s not until his hand is on the cover, pulling it back that he realizes his mistake.

Stupid. So stupid. Of all the ways…

Dodge’s dead eyes stare blankly at the wall in front of him, laid out on his side like he might only be resting except that his throat his a horrible dark gash and his jaw doesn’t line up anymore.

Snake thinks of his CO digging this body up, carting it around, manhandling it into the bed, and a hot wave of bile hits the back of his throat, just as something hard taps against the back of his head. Snake heads the soft click of a well-worn, well-tended safety disengage.

“You always were the kind of asshole who brings a knife to a gunfight.”

“Figured I’d give you a fighting chance.” The bravado doesn’t quite sound as forced as it is. Snake turns his head a little and doesn’t even get his brains blown out for the trouble.  

“Ha. I always liked you, kid.”

Snake wills himself into the Quiet, that place where time stretches out for him. Where he feels complete in his body, in the world. He reaches for it, finds it, and holds on like hell.

“That’s funny. I never liked you at all.”

He swipes at the gun, pulling it out of line with his head as he moves the rest of his body in the other direction. It goes off with a deafening bang, right next to his ear, but at least it wasn’t going through his face. At such a close range the muzzle flash shreds his night-vision, but in that quiet place he doesn’t need to see. He already knows where the other man will be. Knows where to strike. Adrenaline running high Snake feels no pain, even when he’s knocked on his back and his skull is slammed against the ground. The knife goes clattering off to the side and the struggle begins in earnest.  

In the dim light from the window he can see his CO’s eyes, wide not quite with terror, not quite with joy, but some horrible mad mix in between. That’s the moment when Snake realizes what all the training has been for. For that moment when the human parts of your brain go truly dark and the animal takes over. He’s aware of himself screaming, though he doesn’t hear it. Doesn’t see, doesn’t feel, doesn’t _stop_ until his fingers hurt and cramp from clawing into a throat that hasn’t moved in quite some time.

Heaving for air, he catches sight of movement from the doorway. The woman is standing there, her expression unreadable in the dark. For a moment neither one of them moves, then she steps over the threshold and over to where he’s kneeling over his CO’s chest, his hands wrapped around the other man’s throat.

She takes a long look down at the ruined, bulging face, and says something his dazed brain can’t quite translate before she spits right into one of those wide, unseeing eyes.

Snake slides off to the other side and starts digging under the bed until he comes up with a locked case. Grabbing the discarded gun he smashes the butt against the lock until it breaks, then starts pulling out stacks of US dollars and the woman is staring at him with those huge, scared eyes and…

 

_INVESTIGATOR 1: I’m sorry, can we go back a step?_

_[REDACTED]: Okay_

_INVESTIGATOR 2: Sure_

_INVESTIGATOR 1: Sorry, I… I want to make sure we’re clear._

_[REDACTED]: Okay_

_INVESTIGATOR 1: Did [REDACTED] attack you first? Or did you initiate?_

_[REDACTED]: He had a weapon-_

_INVESTIGATOR 2: Was he displaying hostile intent?_

_INVESTIGATOR 1: Don’t. That’s leading_

_INVESTIGATOR 2: Oh, sorry_

_INVESTIGATOR 1: What did you interpret [REDACTED]’s intent to be?_

_[REDACTED]: Well he had a loaded gun jammed into my skull so…_

_INVESTIGATOR 1: You felt the need to defend yourself from him?_

_[REDACTED]: I… look… Should I have a lawyer here?_

_INVESTIGATOR 1: Hey now son, it’s not like that. We’re all on the same side here. We’re not cops._

_[REDACTED]: I’m not sure who you guys are, actually._

_INVESTIGATOR 1: We’re all on the same side here, like I said. Lawyers just mess things up. Drag things out. And I think we’re almost done. I’m almost done – do you have any other questions before we move on?_

_INVESTIGATOR 2: No, I’m good_

_INVESTIGATOR 1: Okay good. Alright, I’ll level with you here. There’s really only one more thing we need to know about here, but it’s important. Okay?_

_[REDACTED]: Okay_

_INVESTIGATOR 1: It was a tragedy what happened out there and I’m sure your name’s in for all kinds of medals and whatever posting you want. I’d like to help make that happen._

_[REDACTED]: Okay. But?_

_INVESTIGATOR 1: But… and I really want to help you out here, son. Personally, I think you’re a hero. I know you were in a bad situation. Just trying to get out in one piece. I don't think you deserve to rot in a hole for treason. So why don’t you help me help you?_

_[REDACTED]: Okay?_

_INVESTIGATOR 1: Just tell us where the money is, son…_


	4. NYT | Part2: Peacekeeping

# NYT Part 2: Peacekeeping

_By Holly White, on location in Zanzibar Land_

Dear readers,

Thank you to everyone who participated in my poll last week. For those of you who missed out, it was a quick survey asking how much everyone had been taught about peacekeeping in school.

Turns out, not much.

Of course, that all depends on where you’re from, how old you are, etc. Based on the comments, opinions on the UN’s Peacekeeping (UNPK) program vary.

At its best, UNPK brought the world together to try to end conflicts, or at least to resolve them in a less destructive forum. At its worst, it was an overly political, overly bureaucratic, under-resourced war apparatus that did more harm than good. Results can, and did, vary.

The idea seemed great in theory, at least that’s what I was taught, and absolutely fell apart in practice. Turns out, it’s hard to take soldiers from different parts of the world, put them under a single command, outfit them and ship them off to a conflict zone where they’re expected to manage a situation at a local level with facets a lot of us can’t even wrap our minds around.

Manage, being the key word. It’s the UN so there are a lot of rules about what you can and can’t do and who can or cannot approve further action.

And it’s the UN so everything is very much about the politics. The optics. Who is spending what money on what war. That’s not how it’s supposed to work but, well, if it looks bad in the press – if it could even _maybe_ be made to look bad in the press… you catch my drift.

So we (that’s the global we), needed a new option. A more efficient option. Governments outsource just about everything these days, including war (see my colleague’s recent in-depth investigation into government spending on security contractors versus long-term veteran benefits). Why not peace?

It seemed like a longshot, even from the beginning. Most of the largest private military corporations are based in the US or the UK. Those countries already have enough boots on the ground. If the UN wanted to fund another American colonial war they wouldn’t take it through the RFP process.

But there is another major player most of us weren’t even aware of. A not-quite state military for a not-quite militarized state. Its population represents nearly all corners of the world and over a dozen languages. It also possesses a stock of high-grade military gear. It doesn’t come with any of the colonial baggage left over from the League of Nations. And, it’s for hire.

Classic liberal economic ideology espoused that money would be the great equalizer. That turned out to be false in a lot of ways, but in this instance it’s true. The UN is finally operating on the same stage as its main members (some of which are now indirectly funding both sides of a proxy war). Zanzibar Land does not withhold services from anyone, as long as you can pay the bill.

We have an aversion to mercenaries. They are often portrayed as men and women who are willing to kill for the highest bidder. But, even if we ignore the glaring reality that we pay our soldiers to do very much the same tasks (and that many enlist for the money not the ideology), national armies comprised of volunteers and conscripts are a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of global warfare. Yes, there were instances of mercenary armies turning on their employers mid-conflict, but generally that kind of unprofessional disloyalty is bad for business no matter what industry you’re in.

This mercenarism actually translates into some of the most ethical warfare I’ve seen (qualify that oxymoron as much as you see fit). These soldiers aren’t paid to rape and pillage; any word of any activities conducted outside of a contract results in strict, harsh discipline, the methods and extent of which I am not permitted to outline here. But it’s not used often; the awe and duty the soldiers of Zanzibar Land feel toward their leader and their nation and each other keeps everyone in line in one of the most efficient war machines in the world. This is a modern army operating at its peak, and whether you agree with it or not, no one can deny that there is plenty of work to go around. And, since it took over peacekeeping operations, it has saved the UN hundreds of millions of dollars and improved its outcomes in nearly every region.

And, of course, there’s no need to whip up a frenzy of hate and dehumanization when you’re just there for a paycheck.

The only other organization that gets such impressive results is, of course, the US Army. Over the years the federal government drastically reduced both its monetary and troop contributions to the UNPK (when it still existed), preferring to send in its own troops. That worked out okay in some instances, and not at all okay in others. And now there’s only one country that, globally, can show up and receive a warm welcome, often in the mother tongue of the troops dispatched. They wear the blue helmets and berets of UN Peacekeepers, and the red armbands of Zanzibar Land.

But peacekeeping isn’t all they do here. Check back next week for personal interviews with some of the soldier-citizens of ZL. Or click below to subscribe for updates...


	5. ZLUNPKO

# ZLUNPKO

The crowd outside the gate is becoming increasingly agitated, increasingly violent. Snake steps back as a rock is thrown, glancing off the metal bars of the fence with a loud twang. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the man beside him slide the safety off his weapon.

A man and woman are dragged out in front of the crowd, the woman by her hair and the man by the collar of his shirt. The woman is screaming, begging, and the man is already bleeding. The air goes from tense to practically on fire.

The man with his fist in the woman’s hair looks right at Snake and smiles, a machete in his free hand. He says something, but Snake can’t understand over the roar of the crowd and the language barrier. Whatever it is, it isn’t friendly.

Snake doesn’t bother with the safety on his rifle; in a crowd like that it would be a massacre. He’ll go right through the front gate and rip that motherfucker apart with his bare hands. The rest of the gate guard and their ARs ought to be enough to keep the crowd from swarming. They can probably drag the woman and man back to safety before the crowd reacts and turns. Probably.

Then the male prisoner manages to break out of the grasp holding him, and the whole thing blows up. The man with the machete grabs the woman and cuts a huge slice across her chest. Snake swings his rifle behind him and reaches for the bars of the gate; no time to go through, he’ll just go over. Beside him the other man raises his gun, ready to provide cover.

Then a hand grabs the back of his shirt and drags him back down, throwing him to the dirt. He lands hard, his blue beret scattering off into the dust.

“Get back from the fence! All of you!” Bull lives up to his name, charging onto the scene. He grabs Snake by the collar and pulls him to his feet. “What the fuck are you doing? Are you trying to start a fucking war?”

Snake shoves him back, pointing to the other side of the fence where chaos is still reigning. “Are you blind? There already _is_ a fucking war going on!”

“They’re baiting you, you stupid jackoff. You open that gate and you’re opening us all up to a world of hurt.”

“You’re just going to stand here?”

Bull cuffs him hard across the ear with one big meaty hand. “What do you think is going to happen when a nice white, blue-eyed American gets torn to shreds by an angry mob in this part of the world? They’ll drag you through the fucking street.”

“He’s right, brother,” one of the other PKs says. He has huge, sad brown eyes in a too-thin face and speaks with a French accent. “You’re not in the army anymore – we don’t have that kind of authority.”

“Fuck all of you.” Snake spits on the ground. Spits on the whole fucking ugly world. “Fucking piece of shit cowards.”

This kind of outburst isn't like him. Doesn't suit him. But he's still raw where the bureaucratic blinders of military authority nearly dragged him down to hell. This was supposed to be different. A way to leave all that behind. Well, the more things change the more they stay the same. And a fight against his comrades isn't one he can win. He'll have to be smart about it.

Sensing that internal politics have overshadowed their little demonstration, the thugs and the man with the machete fade out into the crowd which quickly starts to disperse around the woman who is now huddled over the unmoving shape of the man. Snake takes one last long look at the man with the machete and memorizes everything he can – his face, his walk, his stupid shit-eating grin. When he tracks him down he’ll need to be sure he’s gutting the right guy. 

\-----

Snake checks the magazine in his pistol one last time before tucking it back into the holster. Despite the heat of the evening he pulls on a boxy coat to disguise the shape of it, the familiar weight of his favourite combat knife pressed against his chest where the sheath hangs against the shoulder strap. He loves that knife; sometimes he thinks he could walk out into the wilds with just that and never look back.

After all of the excitement of the day the halls are quiet, subdued. He can hear the TV on low in the common room at the end of the compound. The guys usually liked to unwind by playing videogames, but Bull had doubled the guard up on the front gate, and Snake suspects whoever is in there now is likely dozing on the couch. In fact, he’s counting on it.

He turns, heading the other way down the hall, toward the kitchen and the back door. Frog always pulls back gate duty, and he’s young; the other men often tease him by calling him Tadpole instead. He does as he’s told as long as you say it with enough authority in your voice. Perfect for the quiet escape Snake is looking for.

Only the kitchen isn’t empty when he gets there. Bull is sitting at the table, rolling a cup of instant coffee between his palms under the harsh glare of the overhead lamp.

“Nice night,” Bull says in his heavy Irish brogue, the stark light turning his dark eyes into black pools. He looks Snake up and down, his eyes lingering on his shoulder where the weight of the loaded pistol is pressed to his side.

“Yeah.”

“Going out?”

“Thought I might get some air, yeah.” Snake can feel the sweat beading on his forehead. Bull is sweating and he’s sitting down in just a t-shirt.

“Mm.” Bull takes a swig of his coffee, tipping the cup back to drain the dregs. He winces at the bitter taste of the grounds that have collected at the bottom. “I hate this awful instant shit.”

“Maybe they’ll send us some decent stuff with the next supply drop.” Snake tries not to feel anxious; this is hardly the worst roadblock he’s faced on a mission. It’s just that subverting his commanding officer isn’t the type of roadblock he usually has to overcome. Usually.

“Doubt it. We just got one last week and it was all instant coffee and rice. Like I’m supposed to feed my guys on that.”

“Hard to eat in this heat anyway.”

“Yeah. Anyway, they made up for it – did you see the new body armour they sent? Lightweight, stab-proof… it can stop a decent sized round right to the heart. I think Bishop got a deal on it because the paint looks all off.”

“No, haven’t seen it. Not much use for stab-proof body-armour behind a locked gate.” Snake can’t help the bitter edge that creeps into his voice.

“Yeah, we keep it all locked up in the armoury, anyway. You know how some of the guys are – sticky fingers. We got a bunch of sweet little semi-autos with suppressors too. Shame we’ll probably never get to use any of it.”

“Yeah.”

“Yup, a damn shame.” With his eyes still on Snake, Bull reaches down to his belt and pulls a single key off the ring, sliding it over to the middle of the table. His chair scrapes against the cheap linoleum as he stands up and steps around it. Snake steps to the side of the doorway and as he passes Bull claps a huge hand on his shoulder, right over the strap of his shoulder holster, and squeezes. “You have a good night, brother. Enjoy the air.”

Snake nods, and waits until he hears the sound of his boots disappear around the far corner behind him before grabbing the key off the table and making a detour for the armoury.

\-----

Bull was right, the new body armour was sweet – light, moveable – but something had gone wrong with the colouring and instead of a true black it has an awful green undertone in the fluorescent lighting of the armoury. It fits like a glove under his jacket. The new guns were pretty sweet too, but Snake prefers his old, trusty pistol; this wasn’t a time to be learning the quirks of a new weapon. Besides, he wasn’t planning on needing it anyway.

As predicted, it had been easy to convince Frog to open the gate to let him out for a little R&R time. Snake knows that, with the American guys at least, his reputation precedes him. And they all knew what had happened earlier. It wasn’t unfathomable that he’d want to go out and blow off some steam. Maybe hit one of the local bars close to the base. Maybe spend a couple of hours with one of the paid companions that hung out there.

Outside of the gate and out of sight in the dark of the abandoned back street Snake feels a familiar calm settle over him. It’s a cold feeling, one that pricks awareness into his skin the way a sharp winter morning does, but a far from unpleasant one. His brain clicks over into a different gear, one where all his thought processes work a little differently. It’s still hot under the body armour and bulky jacket, but discomfort is no longer an issue as long as it’s merely superficial. At the same time his eyes feel more sensitive and he can feel a light breeze caress his skin.

It’s not hard to find what he’s looking for. The militia gangs all have their territories. They have no reason to hide; they know, better than Snake even, that the UN is neutered here by its own rules. They have enough weapons and fear on their side they don’t even bother with a hard perimeter, and the roadblocks are easy enough to avoid for a single man with an agenda. Where he can’t go through, he simply goes up and over on the rooftops.

Snake has always been lucky on the battlefield. He’s walked away from mistakes that have killed other men. He always seems to pick the right fork in the road, to be at the right place at the right time. To pull the trigger right when the wind dies down. He crouches in the shadow of a shipping crate to get his bearings and his target walks right by with a group of his cronies. They’re all laughing and chatting too loudly to be sober; an easy group to follow, even from a wide distance.

At the back of the camp, in a nice cozy little corner away from the hustle and bustle, the leader has his own little hut made out of scrap. It’s a dump, like everything else in the camp except the brand new weapons, but it’s leagues above what those lower down the foodchain are sleeping in. It has one window, more of a gap in the pieces of sheet metal, and from Snake’s vantage point he can see his target moving around.

He waits. No one ever stresses how important patience is on the battlefield, but Snake has it in spades and always has. He learned at a young age that being impatient and demanding only bring you the wrong kind of attention. Better to wait and watch and listen and then just take what you need when no one else is looking.

It doesn’t take long for the little light in the hut to go out; fuel is a precious resource in a place like this. Snake moves a little closer, waits for a gap, and then slips through the curtain that serves as a door. This guy is such a small fish there’s no guard posted for him. Snake can almost feel a little bad about that, except he can still remember in crystal clarity the way the man had smiled as he sliced up a woman right in front of the gate.

Yeah. Fuck this guy.

The target sleeps face down on a little pallet in the far corner of the hut. It takes nothing to close the distance, force his head into the dirt to muffle the sound and slit his throat. He’s barely even awake before he’s dead.

Out of habit, Snake checks the room for anything that might be of use, but there’s nothing. No maps, no notes, no photos. Just the cooling meatsack that used to be one hell of a prick. Snake is out the door before the guard even wanders back on his route. Back at the gate of the embassy before the guard change. He didn’t even get blood on his boots, though there’s certainly plenty on his hands. Figuratively, of course. He would never be that sloppy. He smokes half a dozen cigarettes in a row before finally settling down.

In the morning, Bull wakes him up by pounding on the doorframe to his room a couple of times before opening the door. Snake rubs a hand roughly over his face but is awake instantly. His body is heavy with a familiar exhaustion brought on by adrenaline. It feels good. For the first time in a long time, he feels good. Which he knows is wrong, he knows that's something broken about him, so he shoves it down with all of the other jagged pieces of himself and locks it down tight.

Bull’s face is firm, but his eyes are apologetic. Snake knows that look, and knows it can’t mean anything good. “Pack your shit. They’re calling you back home. Flight leaves at 09:00 from the airstrip.”

Then he’s gone. Snake grabs his duffel out from under the bed and starts rolling shit into it. It’s routine by now. And despite it all, even though he knows he's going to catch hell for it, he can’t quite bring himself to feel bad. He wonders what that means.

 

 


	6. Bishop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Spirit, No God; No Bishop, No King

Snake knocks on the doorway to Bishop’s office. As always, the door is mostly ajar, so the knock is just for courtesy. Bishop waves him over to the seat across the desk but continues typing away on his briefcase-sized laptop, the square, white reflection from the screen shining in his glasses.

The cracked pleather seat creaks as Snake sits down. The wait is just for show, a little time mismanagement to show who’s in charge. Snake lets his eyes wander; Bishop keeps his office neat and tidy; the only papers out of place are the ones in front of him. Behind him a rack of filing cabinets are neatly labelled. One runs A-Z, another 0000-1000 and another 1995 – present. Likely every man, woman and child who has ever passed through the front gate has a neat little file folder tucked away in one of them. A large whiteboard calendar hangs on one wall, with different coloured writing marking various things on various days. Snake notes that there are no personal items to be found anywhere within the four walls. Not even a hint of one. It was as if, as the men often joked, Bishop didn’t really exist outside of this office.

After a moment Bishop finishes typing and closes the laptop, scooping the papers together and setting them on top of the case before turning his attention to Snake.

“Sorry about that.”

“It’s no trouble, sir.”

“I love you Americans, always so respectful,” he flashes one of his smiles, all straight-white teeth and insincerity. The effect is somewhat diminished by the three days’ worth of beard and the sweat stain around the collar of his navy blue t-shirt, one sleeve pinned shut. “And people say Canadians are polite.”

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

Bishop taps the fingers of his one hand against the desktop in a rolling rhythm. Snake can feel the piercing gaze of those green eyes from behind the glare of his glasses. “I think we both know what this conversation is, and why we’re going to have it.”

Snake does know, but he he’s not stupid enough to play his hand so early. The easiest way to win an argument was to let the other person fill in the blanks for you. So he doesn’t say anything, just drops his eyes; Bishop saw too much from behind the safety of his glazed lenses. Besides, he resented the paternalistic lilt in the other man’s voice.

“Look, I know you all think I just sit around here all day with my head up my ass, sucking my own dick. But I can assure you I know **everything** that goes on in **every single one** of our AOs. That’s how I know which newspaper editors to bribe when one of our guys walks into a DMZ and slits a local man’s throat in his sleep.”

Snake bites off the retort just before it can leave the tip of his tongue; he _knows_ he wasn’t seen.

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at, sir.” Before coming in here, he’d already decided he wasn’t going to apologize. He’d carry the mark, carry the guilt, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to apologize for taking one bad actor out of the picture. Bull had advised him to keep his head down and wait for the storm to pass.

“Cut the shit or I’ll smoke you into next week. I know it was you. I know it was you because the PKs are the farm team of security team – which are all the guys who didn’t qualify for combat ops or any other post. Except you. So there was literally no one else that it could have been. You should be flattered – it was pretty much a flawless op. If I’d actually hired you to pull that shit I would have paid top dollar.”

Well. Fine. There goes Bull’s “play dumb” tactic.

“You want me to apologize? That piece of shit deserved it. They were butchering people in the streets.” Snake feels heat flush into his cheeks. Feels like a nine year old getting a dressing down from the vice principal for breaking up a fight by knocking the bully down.

“Yeah, I heard all about it. And my heart breaks for those people, it really does. It’s a shitty world out there. But when the UN says you stay on the inside of the fence, you stay in inside the fucking fence. I know they taught you how to follow orders in the Green Berets.”

Snake bristles. “I thought this was supposed to be a place where none of those bullshit bureaucratic rules applied. I thought that was the whole point. To be beyond all the politicking.”

“Well you thought wrong, kid. This is an army. And an army needs bureaucracy. And a private army needs to make money to pay for all those nice things you have. Or did you think you were the only person in the world who wanted that asshole scrubbed off the face of the earth?”

“I-“

“You made some pencil pushing accountant in DC very happy when you so generously provided our services free of charge for them.”

“Contract killings? Really?” The thought makes him suddenly sick, tangled up in all kinds of hypocrisy in his head.

“Yes,” Bishop’s face is hard. “How much do you think a contract like that is worth?”

“I don’t know.”

“Guess.”

“I don’t know, sir.” His guts are still all twisted up. Standing behind a fence was one thing. Planning an op, taking in a team, killing people in the execution of a mission, that was one thing. But assassination… that didn’t sit right. Snake had run full-tilt into a moral border wall he didn’t even know he still possessed.

Bishop reaches behind and pulls a file folder off of one of the racks. It had a big black mark crossing it, made in marker. He opens it on the desk in front of Snake, to a page where a list of expenses is listed and tallied. He can recognize Bishop’s snarled signature on one line beneath a figure with several zeroes behind it. The other signature line is blank.

His eyebrows shoot up. Of course he’d known that war was good business, but it was one thing to know it and quite another to see a man’s life itemized down to dollars and cents.

“Impressive, huh? And that’s just the going rate for shit-stain warlords in parts of the world that most people stateside can’t even spell. Whatever we want to charge, they’ll pay – every damn agency will pay whatever we ask to keep their hands clean.”

“And you’ll take their money because your hands are already too dirty to ever come clean.”

Bishop shrugs his lopsided shrug and smiles his cold, viper grin. “You’re the one that slit a man’s throat in his bed just because you felt like it.”

Snake swallows through the tension in his jaw and Bishop can see he has him exactly where he needs him to be. He keeps his smile hard. This is a delicate moment; soldiers like Snake are a blessing and a curse. Smart enough to think their way out of a jam and right into a self-depreciating snare that ends in the bottom of a bottle or the end of a rope. Men who kill for a living shouldn’t ask too many hard questions. But if you can keep the heads clear, you can make a lot of money off of them before they end up that way.

“So I’d like to go back to another conversation we had,” Bishop slides the file folder back over to his side of the desk, closes it, pushes it off to the side. “In this room. With your ass in that chair. Where I specifically, explicitly asked you if you wanted to be assigned to a combat team. And you told me no. You told me that you only wanted PK jobs and that the only reason you were here was because of the UN contract. Does that accurately characterize that discussion?”

“Yessir.” Snakes eyes are back up, but they’ve found that enigmatic spot in middle distance that resides just behind an officer’s head.

“And then, of course, the first PK job I put you on turns out to be not enough for you. You have to go find a little extra excitement. Normally, I’d show you the door, but I just don’t think we can afford to lose someone of your calibre. So I’m going to ask you again – do you want on a combat team or do you want to keep guarding fences and immunization clinics with the PK?”

He’d framed it as a simple, leading question. But it isn’t that simple for Snake. A part of him wants so badly to believe that it could be different, that _he_ could be different. That somehow ten years of killing and death could be used for something more than just to self-perpetuate more violence.

And maybe that’s what Bishop’s really offering; a _real_ chance to make a difference. A better opportunity to put his unique skills to use, beyond standing behind a gate.

Or maybe he’s only ever going to be cut out for one thing. Maybe it was a mistake to think it could ever be another way for him. After all, he could have walked out into the desert and never looked back. But he didn’t. He made his way here. He’s already made the choice to pick up a gun again. 

Snake sighs out a deep breath, and a piece of something inside goes with it. He nods, and his eyes come back down to find Bishop’s behind the glass.

“Okay. I want in.” 

\-----

Later, Snake is up on the roof of the Command Centre smoking. The roof is the highest vantage point on the base – in the whole country, really – and one of the few places you can see beyond the treeline. There are a couple of other guys posted up there on watch with high-powered NVGs and sniper rifles, but after exchanging a few basic pleasantries they usually leave him alone to his thoughts. He likes to lean against the edge of the building and smoke and listen to the sounds of the base below him as thoughts roll back and forth in his head like marbles. Sometimes they don’t really fit together, they just roll around and clink off each other. Below, he can see soldiers making their nightly rounds or moving between the chow hall and the barracks. The sounds are all familiar, more familiar than nighttime in the city or anything from back in the civilian world. Amid all of the soldiers and weapons and equipment of war he feels _safe_ ; he sleeps better here than he ever did off-base.

Hell, he slept better in Afghanistan than he did in the apartment he rented back stateside. There was something about knowing that someone was out there, keeping watch, keeping you safe so you could rest, so you could protect them in turn, that the civilian world just couldn’t replicate.

If he's honest, he’d been afraid that Bishop was about to hand him his walking papers. To send him back out into that world he’d never really fit in to. He wants to stay, would do almost anything to stay here, among these men and women with their animal names and their hearts that understand his without even words. And that scares him a bit, too.

Wanting. Needing. Fear. It all makes you vulnerable, he knows. And vulnerability makes you dead. Or worse.

Behind him the door to the roof opens with a small squeak and a burst of light from the stairwell. Snake lights another cigarette, assuming it’s just one of the guards on watch heading back down for something, or someone coming up to bring them another case of the energy drinks that seem to have made their way even to this part of the world. The shadow of a presence beside him is startling, and embarrassing until he realizes who it is; the man moves as quietly as the shadow he is in the twilight. Snake looks over, and the Commander gives him a nod, slipping a cigar between his lips and cupping his lighter. He’s left enough space between them that there’s no real obligation to talk.

The lighter clicks and clicks and clicks with no result, so Snake tucks his cigarette into the corner of his mouth and digs into his pocket, offering the older man his own lighter. This one takes on the first stroke, and the Commander takes a long, grateful drag off his cigar before passing it back. In the flicker of the lighter Snake sees that, up close, his face carries the marks of his career in deep circles under his eyes and a certain hollowness under his cheeks. Oddly enough, that’s reassuring. You shouldn’t be able to lead that kind of life with nothing to show from it. Snake certainly hasn’t; the hair at his temples is already streaked with silver and there are creases around his eyes from squinting into the glare of the sun. Hard brackets taking shape around his mouth from frowning.

He finishes his cigarette, and slips the butt into his portable ashtray. He’s already turning to leave when the Commander speaks.

“Don’t let Bishop get to you. He’s been out of the field a long time. Sometimes he forgets what it’s like.”

Snake has been in the military too long to fall into the trap he sees in front of him. A bit of praise offered in one hand, while the other winds up to smoke you.

“He was right. I was way out of line. It won’t happen again.”

“It was. But it was also a near-perfect kill, and I can appreciate that. Your tradecraft needs some work, but your technique is solid.”

“Thank you, sir.” Something in his chest swells at even those simple words of praise. That’s always been his weakness, he knows. Why he always did well in the military where a few, hard men offered up their approval only on seldom occasions and always after hard, gruelling work. And he’d lived for it. Lived and killed and died a little for it. And was still living and killing and likely dying for it. But to be an equal to a man like the Commander, to even come close, is everything to a man like him with nothing else.

“There’s no rank out here in the dark,” the Commander tells him. “Out here, we’re all brothers.”

“Okay,” Snake says, though he knows that even among brothers there’s hierarchy.

“Get some rest, kid.”

Effectively dismissed, Snake makes his way back to his rack in the barracks, this time with his head held high.  


	7. FLASHBACK: Manitoba, 200X

The bar just out of CFB Shilo wasn’t much to look at, but the alcohol they served there got you just as drunk as anywhere else. One man sat alone at the bar, curled over his glass while a couple of others played a lazy game of pool in the corner. In the corner a VLT machine flashed. Through a set of swinging double doors families sat together to enjoy a meal and whenever a server passed through light and laughter spilled through in glimpses.

The man at the bar was deep into his drink and a few other things too. The light and sound were hypnotic as they pulsed around him with a warm, white noise. This was the best part of his day, and this particular day had been hell. He rubbed his left hand over the aching burl of scarred flesh where his right arm used to meet his body. Changes in air pressure brought in by new cold fronts always made his afflicted shoulder joint unhappy.

The outside door swung open, letting in only the dark and the brittle chill of a prairie midwinter. A man in a bulky parka strode in and shook off the snow, taking in the room, sizing it up with a few quick glances. Pulling off his gloves and shoving them into a pocket he sat next to the man at the bar.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

The one-armed man looked up at the stranger, the flashing lights from the VLT reflecting off his glasses. Human contact seemed to bring him back a bit, and his mouth twisted into a sympathetic smile, a bit sloppy around the edges.

“Sorry. I don’t think you’re my type.”

“It’s not that kind of proposition.” Despite the cold the stranger was bareheaded, his thick, dark hair liberally streaked with grey and disheveled from when he’d pushed back his hood. He smoothed a hand back over it and the errant strands all settled back into place. His features were worn, shadows dark in the creases. A patch covered one eye; he’d made sure to sit with his good, left side closest to the other man.

“Oh no? What kind is it then?”

“Business.”

“I think you might have the wrong guy. I’m not a business man.”

“Are you Lieutenant-Colonel Tobias Bishop?”

“Sure. When I’m in uniform.”

“Then you’re the right guy.”

The stranger ordered himself a drink and waited until the bartender had set it in front of him and moved off before continuing. Tobias took a long, hard look at him, tried to see something he must be missing, but his brain was too soaked to make the connections.

“Do you know who I am?” The stranger turned to face him fully, and then even his liquor drowned brain couldn’t miss the connection.

“Shit,” Tobias’ hand twitched and he nearly knocked over his drink. It wasn’t every day that you got to sit down for a drink with the world’s greatest living soldier. “What do you want from me?”

“I’ve got a job offer for you. Do you know what I’m trying to build?”

“Yeah. Everyone knows." Tobias struggled to keep the squeak out of his voice. "A military nation somewhere out in the Baltics or wherever the fuck it is.”

Big Boss smirked at that, and swallowed down a mouthful of cheap whisky. He seemed to ponder the taste for a moment, as though it actually had something of note to it, and then knocked the rest back. He gestured to the bartender for another.

“Good. I need someone with your skill set.”

“Uh... I’m not…” Tobias gestured at himself, at the pinned-up sleeve of his sweater.

“Not that skillset. I need a quartermaster. Everyone knows Canadians are used to begging, borrowing or stealing for what they need to get the job done. Your boys can make do with just about nothing. Which is good, since you never seem to have what you need. And you come highly recommended. Apparently you’re a real beggar prince.”

“Recommended by who?”

Big Boss rattled off a short list of familiar names, all men who had left recently, their enlistments up. Men from his old unit, who hadn’t had the opportunity to see how far he’d slipped. These days, he mostly requisitioned extra pills for himself.

“I see. Well… I don’t know what to say, I guess. I thought you’d have people lining up.”

Honestly, he’d never seen much of a place for himself in a nation of soldiers. Not anymore. Not since his entire future had been blown off on a roadside in Afghanistan by a bomb that looked like a plastic bag. He didn’t see much of a place for himself anywhere. At least the army was familiar. You didn’t have to think too much because there was always someone more than happy to tell you what to do and exactly how to do it. Miles of rules and regulations you just had to follow. And he was good at following them. At making sure other people followed them to the letter.

“I do. Which is why I need someone who’s better at managing them than I am.”

“Can I think about it?” Tobias’ head was reeling, still spinning, and now floating from the flattery. A part of him silently suspected this entire conversation might be a bad mix of pills, booze and self-delusion.

“Sure,” Big Boss reached into a breast pocket and pulled out a business card which he put face down on the bar between them, keeping it pinned with his finger. “But if you’re in, you sober up.”

“Goddamn, I’m not that drunk.” 

Big Boss levelled him with a cool look from his one good eye. “You have a drinking problem.”

“It’s the pills that are the problem, actually. Well… it’s both actually.”

“I need you sober. I can put you back in fighting form, if that’s what you want, but you can’t trust a drunk.”

“You going to help me grow an arm back?” Bishop said, suddenly bitter.

“I don’t need two arms to beat you like this. And I don’t take men that have given as much as you have and shove them into pantries to count cans. You’ve got a warrior’s spirit. I can give you a warrior’s death. So sleep it off, and if you want in after you sober up, call me.”

Big Boss took his finger off the card and stood, shrugging back into his parka. Tobias slid the card over and picked it up off the bar. It was thick, plain cardstock embossed with a stylized _ZL_ on the back side. He flipped it over. On the front was a name with an international phone number underneath, he didn’t recognize the country code.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me. This is a joke, right?”

The name above the phone number was _John Doe_.

Big Boss threw a couple of colourful bills down on the bar. “Call and find out, if you care that much. Good night Mr. Bishop.”

\-----

A few weeks later Bishop is sweating and wheezing in the dirt in some godforsaken part of the world. It was amazing how out of shape you could get sitting on your ass all day and drowning in alcohol all night.

“Get up,” the Commander says for what must be the thousandth time.

“What’s the point?” Bishop snarls up at him.

“You want to learn how to fight again, or do you want to roll over and die?”

“Right now I want to smash your goddamn face in.”

“That’s a start. Now get up.”

Bishop struggles back up to his feet. It’s rewarding to see the blood trickling down the side of the Commander’s face where he’d landed a lucky strike in one of their scuffles. But other than that there’s not much other than the sweat-stains on his shirt to show that they’ve been sparring for hours – the man is a machine.

“You’re getting it,” the Commander nods. “But you’re still overthinking it.”

“This is bullshit,” Bishop adjusts his glasses. One of the lenses is cracked and they’re smudged to hell, but without them his opponent is nothing more than an olive drab blur to his right eye – another casualty of the IED. “I’m never going to be what I was.”

“That’s right. You can’t ever go back. You want to cry about it some more or do you want to learn how to be even better?”

Bishop charges him – not the best play, but he’s exhausted and running out of brain-power as well as physical stamina. It ends about as well as expected – how it always ends – with him coughing on his back on the ground. He doesn’t even bother to struggle this time and that pisses the Commander off more than the cheap backhand he’d landed earlier. That, he'd actually seemed to _like_. 

“You’ve had enough? You want to give up? Fine.” The Commander gets up, walks over to where they’d ditched their gear. He picks up his sidearm and stalks back to where Bishop is still laying in the dust.

“Why the fuck do you care?” His glasses have been knocked off this time, so all he can see is an indistinct blur from his bad eye, sweat stinging his good one. He looks younger without them, but also impossibly old with all the weariness of a life now denied to him hung around his neck.

“You have a warrior’s heart. A soldier’s spirit. That’s worth it. That’s worth it for everyone here.”

Bishop shakes his head. “Save it for some other pity-case.”

But he still struggles when the Commander kneels down on him, one knee digging into his chest while his hand is forced around the handle of a gun, forced to bring it to his own temple.

“You want to die? Go right ahead. Here’s your chance.”

“Fuck you.”

“Go ahead and give up. Go ahead and abandon all of your brothers and sisters. Your duty to serve them. They're out there, protecting you. What are you doing for them?”

“Fuck. You.” He’s dreamed of this moment. Fantasized about it. But now that he really feels the dig of metal into his temple he’s shaking, his heart pounding.

The Commander leans in close, and Bishop can actually see him now. He’s not even angry. There’s nothing in his single good eye except sincerity and somehow that’s the worst. “Go ahead. Even you can still squeeze a trigger.”

He’s right. A little twitch of the finger and this could all be over. The phantom pains. The real pains. The headaches and guilt. The despair. The exhaustion. All done and over with.

But there’s still a little part of him that refuses to go out. A little spark that flickers and then finds fuel. A fire that’s screaming through his blood and then out of his mouth. Bishop rears back as much as he can and then slams his head forward, right into the Commander’s face. It’s enough to upset his balance and they go rolling over together. The gun slips in Bishop’s grip and goes off right beside his head and he freezes – _holyshititwasloaded_ – and then he realizes that he’s got his knee on the Commander’s throat, his fist pulled back for a strike.

The Commander is laughing at his horrified face and saying something he can’t quite hear because his ears are ringing but it sounds a bit like “welcome home.”


	8. NYT Part 3: This is why we fight

# NYT Part 3: This is why we fight

_By Holly White, on location in Zanzibar Land_

Compared to other nations, Zanzibar Land has some interesting features. In many ways, it highlights the new reality of our globalized, glocalized world.

For example, as of yet (though of course subject to change), no citizens of Zanzibar Land were born here. They were all born in other nations, citizens of other places. And they have all travelled here and chosen to be part of this. To give up one nationality for another – this time of their choosing. It’s no small gesture; ZL is a greedy mistress who will tolerate no challengers. To take the oath of citizenship here is to forfeit all other ideologies: no other nations, religions, or identities may take precedence over the bonds of loyalty to ZL and its fellow citizen-soldiers.

To me, it seems like simply exchanging one ideology for another, but that’s not the sentiment here.

“Ideologies change,” Mr. Bishop tells me. “All the time. We recognize that here. Embrace that. For centuries soldiers have been victims of the changing times – friends one day, forced to kill each other the next. Heroes one day each year, not worth a reliable pension the other 364. We’re done with that. We’re soldiers. This is our nation. We belong here. And we always will. Because that’s the identity – not whatever politics is de rigueur at the moment.”

For others, their reasons are simpler.

“I’ve never had a home before. Not like this,” one young man tells me. His family members were all murdered in a civil war, and he was forced to serve in an insurgent militia before making his way here after ZL troops were hired to guard the protected villages in the region and flush out the militias (like his) that were harassing the camps for supplies. He didn’t see third-party interference in the men with the red berets, he saw himself. But bigger. Stronger. I ask him if he’s bothered by any of the contracts ZL has taken, or any of the work he’s been asked to do and he shrugs. “These are my brothers and sisters. I would do anything for them and they would do anything for me.”

“Just got tired of all the bullshit,” another man says. He’s older. British. “I did two tours in Afghanistan in the Queen’s service. After the shit we did over there, heading down to the pub to watch a match never really felt the same.” I ask him if he ever misses the comforts of home – for all its benefits, life in Zanzibar Land is still fairly rustic. “They’ve got cold beer, good Wifi, tons of fancy toys to blow shit up with and if you get bored of that, the women in town are fucking beautiful. I don’t miss it at all.”

“The Boss,” one after another tells me. “He saved my life.” “He saved my squad.” The way he moves/shoots/fights (pick one). “He taught me everything.” “He taught me how to save myself.” “He taught me how to not be afraid anymore.”

For many who come to ZL, the Commander is a father, general, president, and something of a religious figure all rolled into one. For many on the outside, he’s nothing more than a warlord exploiting a cult of personality to seize land from a failing Balkan state and blackening the reputation of the UN in the process. After all, ZL has no violent origin myth on which to base its sense of national identity – but its leader certainly does.

Join me next week when I sit down one on one with the man in charge. Or click below to subscribe for updates...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is why  
> Why we fight  
> Why we like awake
> 
> ...
> 
> When we die  
> We will die  
> With our arms unbound 
> 
> (This is Why We Fight, The Decemberists)


End file.
